Throughout the offices and film rooms of NFL teams, the whispers are building: This may be the deepest NFL draft ever.

It also may be the one that ruins college football.

A minor change in the NFL's collective bargaining agreement with its players, which was signed in 2011, is being blamed for a shift so dramatic, some within the game are fearful that college football's talent base and recruiting system may never be the same. Put simply: Players are rushing to leave school early and go pro like never before.

This year, there will be at least 98 underclassmen available in May's draft, a 34% increase from 2013 and an 85% increase from 2010, the year before the latest collective bargaining agreement. The average age of an NFL player last season was 26 years 308 days, the youngest since 1987.

ENLARGE

James Wilder Jr., who is leaving Florida State after his junior season.
Associated Press

"It's absurd," said
Greg Gabriel,
a former longtime NFL college-scouting director. "You figure on losing a couple of top players going into their senior year. But when you're losing some redshirt sophomore? There's a spiral that's coming that we haven't seen because it's just starting."

Since the late 1980s, the NFL has allowed players who are three years removed from high school to enter the draft. That has led to extraordinary talents such as former Detroit Lions star Barry Sanders and current Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers going pro before they had used their four years of college eligibility. But there existed a clear incentive to stay in school, so most players did.

For the first couple of decades in which underclassmen were allowed in the draft, teams spent huge sums of money on the top picks. A high draft selection thus could leave a player set for life. For instance, the top overall selection in 2010, current St. Louis Rams quarterback Sam Bradford, got a six-year, $78 million contract before throwing a single pro pass. He received 13 times more guaranteed money than the second round's top pick, teammate Rodger Saffold.

In an effort to fix the salaries of top picks—and thus prevent unproven players from getting so much money—the latest CBA called for reform. In the 2013 draft, the first pick, Kansas City Chiefs offensive lineman Eric Fisher, got a four-year, $22 million deal, a fraction of what Bradford received. There is also much less difference between picks. Fisher will make only double what the 15th pick in the draft makes, while the first pick in the second round received about a fourth of Fisher's salary.

In short, the financial incentive to stay in school and improve one's draft position is gone, according to those inside the game.

"It opens the floodgates," said former agent Joel Corry. "Agents are telling the kids that you need to start the clock early on getting the real money, which they say will come on your second contract."

This seismic shift has set off a bit of a panic in the college ranks. "You look at a team like LSU. You lose so many guys that you are reloading with freshmen," said former Arkansas and Mississippi coach Houston Nutt, who is now a CBS Sports analyst. "It gets to be like John Calipari with Kentucky: You are talking about starting over every year. It's just so hard."

LSU is an unfortunate example of the new world order. It was one thing for the Tigers to lose star receivers Odell Beckham Jr. and Jarvis Landry to this year's draft; those types of departures are expected. But LSU also lost redshirt sophomore guard Trai Turner, who isn't considered a top prospect. LSU coach Les Miles couldn't be reached for comment.

An NFL spokesman said the league "does not agree with the idea that the system is the reason players are jumping early." The league added that the spike in early departures can't be explained by the change in pay scale because, after the first round, the majority of rounds in the draft saw few dramatic changes in the pay scale. The NFLPA and NCAA didn't respond to requests for comment.

Scenes like LSU's are being played out across campuses, where prospects coming out of college are leaping to the pros with more raw talent than polish. Florida State running back James Wilder Jr. left for this year's draft after his junior year despite having the fourth-most carries on the team this season.

NFL scouts say that redshirt sophomores—players who sat out for a season and thus have two years of eligibility remaining—are quicker to jump pro than ever before. This year's top redshirt sophomore is Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel, who won the Heisman Trophy as a redshirt freshman yet still has played only two years of college football.

Tony Softli, a former St. Louis Rams executive, said the belief among NFL scouts about redshirt sophomores in general is clear. "They haven't competed long enough, they haven't been in the weight room enough, trained enough and exposed to enough football," he said. "It's hard enough for a senior."

This makes for increasingly uneasy drafts, said Pittsburgh Steelers general manager Kevin Colbert, who called this the deepest draft he has seen in 30 years of scouting. "Even though it's the most talented group that I have seen, I am also worried that it's probably the most immature group," he said.

It is imperative that players not go pro too early, since pro football is uncommonly unforgiving. Unlike basketball, baseball or hockey, football has little in the way of a safety net. There is no true minor league to work one's way back to the top, and foreign leagues don't offer lucrative deals. The Canadian Football League provides refuge for some, but it has a salary cap of under $5 million, as opposed to the NFL's $133 million.

The situation worries Nutt, the ex-college coach, who said that in the late 2000s, a measure was floated at a Southeastern Conference coaches meeting to explore allowing players who left early to return to their teams if the draft didn't work out. Nutt said the idea, which he agreed with, didn't get very far.

"This is concerning to college football," said Gabriel, the former college-scouting director. "This is concerning the college coaches. But no one has an answer for it."

The NFL should really have a D League like the NBA. But football teams are a lot more expensive to run than basketball teams, so if colleges will develop players for free, I suppose there's no incentive for the NFL to take over the job.

If there was a D League, players with no interest in going to school would have a choice. Those who wanted to could still go, as could true amateurs, players with little or no chance of playing for a living. College football might not be the punchline of a joke when a story comes out about an NFL prospect never being seen in a classroom during his college days.

"In an effort to fix the salaries of top picks—and thus prevent unproven players from getting so much money—the latest CBA called for reform. In the 2013 draft, the first pick, Kansas City Chiefs offensive lineman Eric Fisher, got a four-year, $22 million deal, a fraction of what Bradford received. There is also much less difference between picks. Fisher will make only double what the 15th pick in the draft makes, while the first pick in the second round received about a fourth of Fisher's salary."

So the Player's Union in their Collective Bargaining Agreement conspired with the NFL to limit the pay of new hires? Sounds like the UAW seniority model is taking hold in professional football.

It was just a little while ago that the NFL players were on strike and high-profile players like Tom Brady, Drew Brees, and Peyton Manning sued the NFL because the previous CBA had a number of clauses that limited the ability of players to maximize their earnings (salary cap rules, free agency rules, etc.).

"Defendants, the NFL and its separately-owned and independently operatedmember teams, have jointly agreed and conspired to deny Plaintiffs the abilityto provide and/or market their services in the major league market for professionalfootball players through a patently unlawful group boycott and price-fixing arrangementor, in the alternative, a unilaterally-imposed set of anti-competitive restrictions on playermovement, free agency, and competitive market freedom."

It's good that the union was able to get in there and conspire to price-fix the pay of players not yet in the union.

This will correct itself when the results from this class are shared. I don't think this is as worrisome for college football. It will increase parity as it has in college basketball and because individual players aren't as recognizable as they are in basketball, you won't feel robbed that you didn't get to watch LeBron James suit up for Ohio State.

It is a bigger deal for the NFL because you are taking players who could have been viable in another year or two and putting them on the spot. My guess is most will not develop in the same way they would have or they will be more susceptible to serious injuries because their bodies are not really ready yet.

Coming out early is a business decision. It is not right for every player, but in a sport with a high injury rate it is often a very smart move to leave early. If this hurts college football, that is just too bad. It would be ideal if the NFL were on the baseball model - that is if it had a minor league and drafted 18 year olds. Those who go to a four year college can't be drafter again until after their junior year. This gives a clear professional amateur choice for 18 year olds. These kids should not be forced to go to college in order to play in the NFL and they should have a professional option. Obviously, a minor league is not in the NFL's interest so this is pretty much a pipe dream. However, this leave us with the forced amateur status of football players in the NCAA. This is problematic when the professional option does not exist.

Why is this news? The integration of college and pro sports being driven by TV money has been going on for years. This trend further undercuts the fiction of "amateurism" that the schools and NCAA like to spew. The colleges are effectively farm teams for the pro leagues.

So why is this a problem? These guys weren't really students in the first place. They are just building up a resume to turn pro. So it happens a couple of years early. So what? Will college football's entertainment value be harmed? I seriously doubt it. And even that isn't a problem for these so- called students. The public will still be forced to pay public (and private) school coaches an unbelievable amount of money to coach a game.

College sports is indeed a business, but, unlike legitimate businesses, one that consistently loses money, a good deal of which is then picked up by taxpayers (the rest by donors and by student fees). By allowing players to 'come out' early, the NFL loses a year of free minor leagues, and thus is concerned, the same way they might be concerned if cities required them to pay for their own stadiums.

I agree. Go pro when you feel you are ready. So long as the top high schoolers play just one year at the NCAA football level, basketball too, it gives the sport legitimacy. I couod not watch NCAA basketball in the late 1990s. It was being played by second tier players. Same thing now with NCAA baseball. It is being played by those passed over in the draft, second tier players. I have no time to watch second tier players.

Scholarships, clothing, medical care, room & board, travel expenses, per diem for games...for the very few players on any given college team that will play professional ball, school is probably just a drag. But the dozens of others, the backup quarterback, the long-snappers, the 13th player on the basketball ball roster certainly appreciate the trade off.

If you don't like the "wages" don't take the "job". Go play semi-pro ball and wait until you meet NFL draft eligibility.

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